The Partnerships

Pan-Scottish Themes

• Civil Engineering
   
• Technologies for High Value Manufacturing
   
• Engineering at the Life Sciences Interface
   
• Communications
   
• Energy

Glasgow Research Partnership (GRP)

• JRI in Electronic, Communications and Power Systems
• JRI in Environmental, Infrastructure and Transportation Engineering
• JRI in Mechanics of Materials, Structures and Bioengineering

Edinburgh Research Partnership (ERP)

• JRI in Mathematical Sciences (Maxwell Institute)
• JRI in Signal and Image Processing
• JRI in Subsurface Science and Engineering
• JRI in Energy
• JRI in Integrated Systems
• JRI in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Northern Research Partnership (NRP)

• JRI in Civil Engineering
• JRI in Computational Systems
• JRI in Medical Technologies
• JRI in Energy and Clean Technologies

Some of the research themes within the regional JRIs cut across the three partnerships  and in support of promoting these, the Strategic Board organised an event in June 2007 at which contributors from across  the Regional partnerships were invited to debate and agree a number of cross cutting Pan-Scotland Research Themes. The SRPe had already identified Civil Engineering (The Telford Institute) as a cross-cutting “Pan-Scotland Research Theme” in its proposal document, and this was reinforced at the June event.

The academics involved in this discussion, before, during and after the event, were highly supportive of the approach and have developed the documents attached to this report as Appendices 1 - 6. A key example of this approach was evidenced by the Scottish Energy Technology Partnership (based on the three regional engineering pooling entities) collaborative proposal to host the Hub Offices of the UK Energy Technology Institute (ETI).

Pan-Scotland Research (Cross-Cutting) Themes

The Pan-Scotland Research Themes event identified an initial group of SRPe-integrated Pan-Scotland Research Themes, and have also identified academic leads to direct and co-ordinate these activities across the partnerships.  Activity has already started which will assist the SRPe in achieving an integrated approach to the promotion and expansion of Engineering and related disciplines nationally, internationally and globally in the areas of:

• Civil Engineering (The Telford Institute)
• Technologies for High Value Manufacturing
• Engineering at the Life Sciences Interface (Biomedical Engineering)
• Communications
• Energy Technologies

One important aspect of the June event was the wide-scale recognition that the above list was by no means finite or closed. There was clear evidence that members saw this as an initial consideration of those themes which were mature enough to be immediately developed as pan-Scotland themes, but there was agreement that other themes, such as Mathematical Modelling, Transport, Policy, Law, Regulation, Logistics and other “Social” Sciences, could be added, as activity and staffing grew. This is regarded by the Strategic Board as a healthy indicator of the level of engagement which is developing though SRPe and the Regional Partnerships.